Contextual Errors in Medical Decision Making

Contextual Errors in Medical Decision Making: Overlooked and Understudied.

Although it is widely recognized that effective clinical practice requires attending to the circumstances and needs of individual patients-their life context-rather than just treating disease, the implications of not doing so are rarely assessed. What are, for instance, the consequences of prescribing a medication that is appropriate for treating a clinical condition but inappropriate for a par...

Evaluating physician performance at individualizing care: a pilot study tracking contextual errors in medical decision making.

OBJECTIVES Clinical decision making requires 2 distinct cognitive skills: the ability to classify patients' conditions into diagnostic and management categories that permit the application of research evidence and the ability to individualize or-more specifically-to contextualize care for patients whose circumstances and needs require variation from the standard approach to care. The purpose of...

Modeling contextual decision making in service organizations

Motivation Service organizations rely on efficient, high quality satisfaction of customer needs. In industries as diverse as call centers, banks, and healthcare, managers attempt to institute quality standards through standardized protocols, best practice guidelines, and workflow management systems. These devices offer a good understanding of the ideal process, but inadequately describe the con...

Integrating Contextual Issues in Ethical Decision Making

From Medical Decision-making to Medical-cost-comparative Decision-making.

WHEN A PHYSICIAN GATHERS A PATIENT’S history, runs diagnostic tests and performs an evaluation, he or she is performing medicine’s most fundamental act: medical decision-making. Patient care is all about physicians bringing their education, training and personal experience to bear with a particular patient and his or her particular symptoms, disease or injury. Frequently, the course of treatmen...